Pages

Saturday, September 19, 2015

The E-Pandora Investigation

Since Pandora, which formally ended Oct. 30, 2012 when a final charge was stayed, the Hells Angels’ power has waned in Vancouver. Several Hells Angels have quit the gang in the last several years as police have stepped up enforcement.

Among those no longer with the club are Lloyd (Louie) Robinson, who was a senior East End member, and Randy Potts, one of the 12 convicted in E-Pandora. Both men were befriended by Plante in his efforts to infiltrate the East End chapter.

Juel Stanton

Full-patch Hells Angel Mike Robatzek was kicked out of the biker gang’s White Rock chapter after running into money troubles. Other B.C. Hells Angels have faced a worse fate than expulsion. Former East End enforcer Juel Stanton was executed at his Vancouver heritage house near city hall on Aug. 12, 2010 as he prepared to leave for work. He had been booted from the club just three months earlier.

Founding Vancouver chapter Angel Cedric Baxter Smith went missing from Langley in May 2008 and is presumed dead. Smith had inadvertently brought another police agent to the Hells Angels, which led to other charges and convictions.

Cedric Baxter Smith

“East End has never been the same. East End was at that time the most powerful chapter in Canada. And now they are absolutely decimated,” he said. “The clubhouse is falling apart. Most of the members are well into their 50s and 60s.”

Membership has fallen from 21 in 2004 to just nine today, though some former East End members have transferred to the Nomads and Kelowna chapters. Both the Kelowna and the Burnaby-based Nomads’ chapters were also affected by Pandora, Shinkaruk said. “You look at a number of senior influential Hells Angels who have quit the club – the infighting within those clubs and those members. They steal from one another. They talk about one another. There isn’t really the loyalty that they purport to have.”

There is also a civil forfeiture case against the Hells Angels.

B.C.’s director of civil forfeiture wants to seize the East End, Kelowna and Nanaimo clubhouses. They remain vacant.